Royal Marines

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Tuesday 4th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I will of course look into that and I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the matter. All I would say is that no part of the Armed Forces can be exempt from the need to look for efficiencies. Navy Command would not be doing its job if it did not regularly ask itself whether the balance between marines and sailors is right, whether there are roles that need to be performed by those currently performing them, and whether there is duplication of roles. That is a normal part of military and financial management.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has generously acknowledged that what Britain needs in these uncertain times is forces that are fast, flexible and mobile. As he rightly said, the Royal Marines are second to none worldwide with that capacity. If this is about hard choices, would it not be to play fast and loose with the nation’s defence to place the strength and capability of the Royal Marines at risk in order to fund two gigantic, empty tin cans rattling around the oceans without aircraft to fly from them—or now, it seems, troops to put in them?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord and the House know that the carriers, when they arrive, will be fully manned and have British aircraft on them before they are brought into service. I can assure him that we will make sure that the Royal Marines are properly trained and equipped to perform the vital tasks we ask them to undertake.

A159 Wildcat Helicopter

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to retain the Government-owned tooling and jigs for the A159 Wildcat helicopter within the United Kingdom; and if so, whether these will be installed in the main Leonardo site.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and wish all noble Lords a happy new year.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government fully recognise the capabilities of the UK aviation industry and the contribution that companies such as Leonardo make to our country. Wildcat airframe production for the UK Armed Forces has now drawn to an end and no decision has yet been taken on retention of the tooling and jigs. However, we are working closely with the company on this issue.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

My Lords, I wish—in a spirit even of the fag end of good will—to say thank you for the Answer that the Minister has given, but I find it difficult to do so. We are asking for a very simple thing here. The Government own the tooling and jigs which support the job. Leonardo wants to ship those jobs out to Poland. The Government have the leverage to insist that, before that happens, there is a proper, competitive study on the comparative production costs between the two. That is not asking very much. I remind the Minister that the Government seriously damaged the future of Britain’s only stand-alone helicopter facility by handing out orders to the United States in the early years of this Government, without any competitive study whatever. If they commit that mistake again, we are bound to assume that their promise to do everything they can to preserve jobs in Britain are merely empty words. This will be seen as an insult to the technicians and engineers who spent 100 years providing our armed services with world-beating helicopters in the last period.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord will recognise that decisions on aircraft procurement, as indeed procurement across the defence piece, have to represent best value for the UK taxpayer. On the Wildcat issue, I think the noble Lord will accept that there is no requirement or pressing need for the Government to make a decision yet because no export orders have been received by Leonardo helicopters. However, we clearly have an interest in this. We are working with the company to ensure that UK work content is maintained, and I hope enhanced, for any export orders. The decision on whether to allow the jigs and tools to be relocated offshore will be based on a balanced assessment focused on what is best for UK prosperity.

Brexit: Armed Forces and Diplomatic Service

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege and a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Robertson. I look back with great affection and gratitude at the work that we did together and the way he helped me when he was Secretary-General of NATO and I was the high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

One thing seems crystal clear: having taken the decision to Brexit, Britain is now much more alone and our defence choices are far starker than they were in the hours before President Trump was elected one month and one week ago. Before, during the Brexit debate, we argued that we did not need the European Union because we had NATO, but we will now have an isolationist American President who has made it perfectly clear in his speeches that he does not much believe in NATO and would not even mind seeing it unstitched.

I have a suspicion that in the next few weeks words will be dragged out of Mr Trump’s mouth, saying he did not really mean that and that he does believe in NATO, but NATO and alliances do not depend as much on words as they do on will. No one can doubt that the will of an isolationist American President who admires President Putin will not be the same as the will we have experienced before from our partners across the Atlantic by any measure. The reliance we have placed on NATO in its present form has to be weaker than it was before.

We are left with two very stark choices: either we find a means to work with our European partners to integrate as far as we can; alternatively we will have to be more dependent on the United States, led by a President in favour of isolationism. The effect of his election, and that decision, and the effect of Brexit, taken to improve our independence, has, on the contrary, made us more dependent on the United States. Is that what we really want? Do we believe that that is right?

There is a way round this, of course. The Government can declare that while we will follow through with the Brexit decision and withdraw from political and economic co-operation in Europe, we will nevertheless deepen our integration on defence. If the Minister says that, I will feel comforted, but I do not believe for a moment that that is a spirit of the Government or that they will say that. In that case, we will be increasingly dependent on America led by an isolationist President, whose relationship with Britain might well be judged from the fact that he now believes he can appoint our ambassador in Washington. That does not seem to be any other than a relationship that in its end will turn out to be one of subservience, if not something worse, for our country. I do not believe that that is the right way to go, and I do not believe anyone else can either.

Let me widen the debate a little to a second issue which now confronts us, which depends on us having friends and contacts. Here is a little bit of history. When the Wright brothers turned up in London and sought to sell to the Admiralty their new invention—the design for their aeroplane—the Admiralty was somewhat shocked and perplexed and had an inquiry The inquiry went on far too long—it took two years—and on 7 March 1907, the First Lord of the Admiralty wrote to the Wright brothers, saying,

“I have consulted my expert advisers with regard to your suggestion as to the employment of aeroplanes, and I regret to have to tell you, after the careful consideration of my Board, that the Admiralty … are of the opinion that they would not be of any practical use to the Naval Service”.

That was a mistake and we soon recognised it. But we then made a second mistake, which was that we believed that these were add-ons that we could put on to the Army and the Navy.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords—

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

The time is limited. I know that the noble Lord wants to defend the Admiralty.

We discovered during the Second World War that they were not add-ons but an entire new theatre of war—not only a theatre of war but the vital ground in winning a war. In the first 3,000 years, the winner was who won on the land; for the next 100 years from Trafalgar, the winner was who won on the sea; since Guernica to the present day, who wins in the air wins the war. Now I believe that he who wins in cyberspace wins.

We have to recognise that this is not just an add-on; it is not just a gadget. We have to recognise it as the new theatre of war. Unless we do, dedicate a service to that and commit resources to it we will not be able to succeed where we need to in any future conflict. Unless we look at it in that synoptic fashion, in that same way that we understood about air, then I fear that if our Armed Forces are weak in that arm, however strong they are in all other arms, we will find ourselves crucially weakened. The whole point about winning in cyberspace is that we have to have a policy that crosses borders, links up with others, and which cannot be conducted in isolation because our enemy is now inside the gates as well as outside. That means that if you deliberately remove yourself from a framework for active co-operation with your neighbours and with those who share your interests, you are bound to diminish and weaken your own nation’s defence. The consequence of Brexit, by removing that possibility with our European partners, and with a NATO now weakened by an isolationist US President, cannot other than mean that the long-term defence of this country will be weakened. The measure of the modern age is that what you do is less important than what you can do with others, and we have just deliberately decided that what we can do with others is less than it was previously—and for that I fear we shall pay a very heavy price.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, on the eve of the Queen’s Speech I happened to catch Dr Liam Fox MP from the other place on “Newsnight”. I was rather struck by something he said, and so I noted the words down immediately: “By leaving the European Union, we would bring the European Union to its senses”. Leave aside for a moment the unreality of this statement—that somehow or another, on the morn of Brexit, European citizens across the continent will sit up startled in their beds and say, “Heavens, the Brits have left; now we must come to our senses”. Leave aside also the revelation that the old arrogance Britain has held that everybody else takes their lead from our decisions still exists, and the revelation of what the negotiating strategy of certain Brexiteers in the Government has been with their European colleagues. Leaving all that aside, what struck me most was that as an expression of the isolationist mindset, that statement ranks alongside the famous Times headline: “Fog in the Channel, Continent isolated”. It strikes, it seems to me, exactly at the fallacy at the heart of the Brexit argument: that we reform an institution by leaving it. We all know that, in fact, if you want to reform something, you have to be in it and acting for it, using your influence and building alliances to bring that about.

God knows, we should all want to reform the European Union: it is insufficiently democratic—although not as insufficiently democratic as the place at the other end of the Corridor, which is the only European parliament elected without proportional representation, with the result that we have a Government who enjoy less than a quarter of the available national vote. It is also less democratically deficient than this place, the only European second Chamber that is not elected and the existence of which has no connection with democracy whatsoever. Nevertheless, of course we should want to see democratic reform, and there are friends who will enable us to achieve that. The Danes, for instance, would like to see the Council of Ministers held in public, and insist that their Ministers are mandated before going to negotiate on their behalf with what they should do when they get there and are interrogated afterwards. That would vastly increase parliamentary control over the Council of Ministers, so of course we should seek that, and we have allies who will enable us to do so.

We should also want to see the European Union liberalised—its market is indeed too sclerotic—and we have allies there too, not least in Germany and among the northern European members such as Denmark, Holland, Sweden and Finland. All those countries could be used as allies if only we would care to do so, but we do not. We think that the best way to change the European Union is to cop out instead of getting stuck in. We think that the best use of our energies is to leave rather than to lead.

The other day, a very senior German Minister said to me, “Whenever I go into a European Union meeting with my British colleagues, their very first question is: ‘Excuse me, please tell me the way to the exit?’”. They are spending so much energy trying to get out that they spend none building the alliances to try to win the things that we want. Canning and Castlereagh would be spinning in their graves. The truth of it is that there are things we can win in the European Union, but we will not win them by removing ourselves from it.

This morning, I heard Mr Duncan Smith on the “Today” programme say that all predictions are wrong—not that all predictions can be wrong but that all predictions are wrong. Presumably, that includes the prediction made by the Brexiteers that if only we could leave the European Union we would, like Prometheus unbound, leap into economic success, trading with further nations in the world beyond the European Union. How can it be then that we are near the bottom of the European league table, yet the other nations further up suffer exactly the same so-called burdensome regulations that we do?

The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, identified the reality that much of our business-destroying bureaucracy is homemade, not European made, such as a tax law that runs to 10 million words or broadband that in some cases works more slowly than it does at the base camp at Everest. If it is indeed European bureaucracy that prevents us trading to those nations that we would like to trade with beyond the European Union, how come Germany, at the very centre of the European Union, is able to trade at a volume three times that which we are able to?

If we want to put our economy right, we must look to ourselves. This idea that we can blame all on the European Union is a fallacy. The truth of it is that leaving will diminish our influence, wreck our economy and damage our security. Leaving the European Union would be an act of historic folly for which our children and grandchildren would pay the price.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, we have had quite a debate today, with some very powerful and well-informed contributions, which show this House at its best. Anyone who has any doubts about the role of the House of Lords—and one or two doubts were expressed in the debate today—only needs to read Hansard tomorrow and they will see what a considerable contribution noble Lords bring to our national life.

I start by congratulating my noble friend Lady Jowell on her maiden speech. It was a powerful, well-argued and moving speech. It shows that she served with distinction as an MP and a Minister in the other place and was someone who had the vision to see that the Olympics could be a success. We look forward to her future contributions.

I am sorry that the speech given by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, was a valedictory speech. It was clear, concise and well argued. Right at the beginning, she spoke about education changing lives. As someone who was born and brought up in a mining valley in south Wales, I know that to be a fact. Education was a pathway out of poverty and she, throughout her life, has ensured that more people have benefited from education and had a better life as a result. I had the honour of serving on the Liaison Committee with the noble Baroness, who is slight of stature but formidable in marshalling her arguments. To be honest, she was pretty good in getting her own way, certainly when pitted against me.

It is right for us to consider three key policy areas together in this debate because foreign affairs, international development and defence are linked, especially if you believe, as I do, that our foreign policy is the signpost we need to point us in the right direction for the other two. The debate comes within weeks of the British people being asked to make a momentous decision on future relations with the European Union. Faced as we are with the economic and military superpowers of the United States, Russia and China, Europe needs to be united, at least economically. I am firmly in the stay camp, believing that, both economically and in our long-term defence, Britain is stronger and safer in the European Union.

My noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury developed themes for foreign policy and spoke about international development. I do not propose to take those arguments further, preferring to deal with the third element of this trinity, defence. But before that I will say a few words about soft power, which is a theme that runs through all three policy areas.

During the 2013-14 Session, the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, chaired a committee of this House which produced a report entitled Persuasion and Power in the Modern World. I believe that it was a landmark report which reminded us that Britain over the generations has amassed a great deal of soft power, but the committee concluded that this has been neglected, particularly in our relationship with the Commonwealth. The report called for new approaches, pointing out that the employment of soft power aids our national security, but to achieve that we need to change the mindset among those who shape our international role. Some of the Government’s response to the report was positive, especially recognising that military force alone is insufficient in defending our interests. But then, as so often, the Government rejected a key recommendation urging them to do a lessons learned exercise on post-conflict reconstruction and co-operation between the FCO, DfID and the MoD in Afghanistan. In all my time in the other place, both as a Back-Bencher and as a Minister, I have been frustrated by the reluctance of Governments to do lessons learned exercises. I wonder whether that will ever change.

In the gracious Speech, we were told that the Government will use the opportunity of the new parliamentary Session to strengthen national defences and continue to safeguard national security. We were told that the Government will invest in Britain’s Armed Forces, honour the military covenant and meet the NATO commitment to spend 2% of our national income on defence. We have also been promised a decision to secure the long-term future of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

On the last point, there are many who would say, “About time, too”. Many ask why the Government have delayed taking this important decision for so long. Some commentators have said that the decision will be delayed until the party conferences, so that the Prime Minister can gain the maximum party advantage from Labour’s defence review, which will include looking at the question of replacing Trident. I hope not, but the Prime Minister has form on such things, too often thinking tactically about tomorrow’s headlines rather than strategically about the big picture. But surely he cannot be prepared to play party politics with Britain’s defence—some short-term tactical gain for long-term strategic planning. In the debate on the Queen’s Speech in the other place, the Prime Minister said that,

“we will hold a vote in this House to secure the long-term future of Britain’s nuclear deterrent”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/5/16; col. 32.]

I am sure I am not alone in waiting with bated breath for that vote to take place. It is long overdue.

Every gracious Speech tells us that other measures will be laid before us, so perhaps when he replies, the noble Earl can tell us what other measures are meant by the phrase,

“will invest in Britain’s Armed Forces”,

because they certainly need investment. Our Army is smaller than the one we put in the field against Napoleon, while our Navy is reduced to 19 ships and our Air Force reduced to a handful of combat squadrons. We have no maritime patrol aircraft at a time when the Russians are increasing submarine patrols. We have no aircraft carriers and the frigate replacement programme referred to by my noble friend Lord West—I used to call him First Sea Lord when we worked together in the MoD—has been subject to constant change, updating, confusion and delay.

We on these Benches are not alone in expressing concern at the cutbacks in defence pushed through by this Government and the previous Tory-Lib Dem coalition, but the Government appear to be in denial about this—so much so that the most senior Cabinet ministers will go to extraordinary lengths to suppress any discussion of the impact that Government-imposed cuts have had on our Armed Forces. Indeed, if press reports are to be believed, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Hammond, when he was the Defence Secretary, wanted to court-martial General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO’s deputy supreme commander for Europe, when he said that the Government were taking “one hell of a risk” by cutting the Regular Army and relying on reserves. Now to be fair, the MoD appears to have disputed the court martial threat story, and Mr Hammond has every right to defend his reputation, but did the Foreign Secretary have to go over the top in his response to Sir Richard? Did we need to be regaled this weekend with stories in the press of Mr Hammond saying that Sir Richard has a book to sell and probably a big mortgage to pay? It is a bit beneath the dignity of a Cabinet Minister, especially one holding one of the most senior offices of state, to indulge in this sort of abuse, but there is no accounting for taste.

Setting aside the ephemerality of the court martial story, what is really worrying is the claim by Sir Richard, who said:

“There is and has been a hollowing out of, a cutting away at muscle and damn well nearly at the bone, frankly, in UK defences which puts us now in a very, very different position from where we were even ten … years ago”.

He added:

“I would question whether the UK could deploy a division for war. I think that’s highly unlikely. The notion of deploying a division for war as the UK did in Iraq in 2003 … is frankly almost inconceivable”.

Is he right? Is it inconceivable that we could now deploy a division in 2016, as we did in 2003?

I turn to the reserve forces. They do a fantastic job for Britain and we would be less secure without them. We owe a very considerable debt to the men and women of our reserve forces for their commitment and dedication. However, our wholehearted admiration for them should not prevent us asking questions about the Government’s policy on reserves. In the past year, noble Lords on the Government Benches, as well as on other Benches across the House, have expressed concerns about the policy of replacing fully trained professional regulars with reservists.

The Ministry of Defence’s own Major Projects Authority Annual Report 2014-15, covering Future Reserves 2020 has revealed that the programme has gone from amber red to red. The much-heralded purpose of that project was,

“to increase the UK’s Reserve forces in line with the commitment set out in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review, however the project has not, thus far, met its published recruitment targets, in particular for Army Reserves”.

Can the Minister say when that will be achieved and what steps have been taken to meet that target?

The Government recently published a paper updating us on the work of the reserves. It contains some very interesting articles covering reservists in operations, reservist training, the employer recognition scheme and pictures of Ministers, including the Defence Secretary. These articles are all very interesting, but on the question of the strength of the reserves there are two lines and a link to a website. What does it say about recruitment? I am afraid that that does not get a mention at all. I wonder why that is.

On cybersecurity, the SDSR 2015 raised the issue of tackling this issue and our ambition was set out that Britain would be a “world leader” in doing so. However, there is concern that the Armed Forces will not have the capacity or the expertise to achieve this. The Chancellor pledged a massive increase in spending on cybersecurity, and the Government pledged a full spectrum of military cyber capability. George Osborne, speaking at GCHQ, said that the Government would protect Britain from cyberattack, if necessary by going on the offensive. This is important if we are to counter the work of people such as ISIL and other terrorist organisations around the world. We were told that we would develop an offensive capability. Can the Minister update us on progress?

Finally, I shall say something about the new doctrine of not telling Parliament when we embed our forces in a conflict situation and place them under the command of a foreign power. We might call it the Fallon doctrine. In March 2011, the then Foreign Secretary William Hague—now the noble Lord, Lord Hague—promised that the Government would enshrine in law the necessity to consult Parliament on military action. In April this year, Mr Fallon said that this policy was now abandoned and the convention whereby Parliament would be consulted on any military action would not apply where our forces were embedded in the Armed Forces of another power and under the command of that country’s military. This is a dangerous doctrine.

In a reply to a Question from me asking about the location of embedded forces, the noble Earl the Minister said that he was,

“not able to provide location details as their disclosure would, or would be likely to prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of the Armed Forces”.

No one on these Benches will do anything to prejudice the capability, effectiveness or security of our Armed Forces. While proclaiming transparency on the matter of embedded forces in a Statement on 17 December last year, the Defence Secretary was less than forthcoming when he said that there were 147 British service personnel in embedded locations. He identified 53 locations, but 94 were not revealed. Some 64% of our embedded forces are in locations which Parliament has not been told about.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

I am listening to the noble Lord very carefully, and he is making a very important statement. May I take it as read that he does not include in the requirement to publish the details of our Armed Forces abroad the disposition and deployment of Special Forces?

[Lord Touhig]

No, I would agree with the point made by the noble Lord. Indeed, for the benefit of the House, if there is any doubt, before I tabled the Question to the noble Earl, who was away at that time on a very important visit to Korea, I asked the MoD whether I would cause any embarrassment to our national security by tabling the Question—through the help of his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton. I did not get a response, so I tabled the Question. I took steps to try to ensure that I was not in any way threatening our security by asking such a Question.

While I recognise that there are cases for effective security, this dangerous doctrine is now becoming the rule, not the exception. I hope the Government will review this policy of deliberately keeping Parliament in the dark. The first duty of every Government is the well-being of our people. That begins with the defence of the realm, which is best achieved when there is consensus and agreement across the board on how best that can be done. But, while working with the Government as much as possible, the Opposition—not just the Opposition, but all Members—would be failing in their duty not to raise concerns where we see deficiencies and shortcomings. The criticisms we have made today are meant to be constructive and achieve a better outcome.

I say only this. I learned a long time ago in politics that it is not sensible to reject a good idea simply because somebody else thought of it first. I rather think that the noble Earl would agree with that. His big task now is to persuade the rest of the Government.

Afghan Interpreters

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the treatment of Afghan interpreters seeking to come to the United Kingdom, in the light of the death of Nangyalai Dawoodzai.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, it is because we recognise a debt of gratitude to our Afghan staff that our redundancy scheme is relocating some 500 eligible staff and their families to the UK. Additionally, our intimidation investigation team in Kabul supports all former staff whose lives may be at risk due to their UK employment. We have supported 400 local staff with security advice and relocated 30 to safe areas in Afghanistan. If an individual cannot be made safe in Afghanistan, a case will be made for relocation to the UK. We keep our approach under review as the security situation in Afghanistan changes.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. It seems uncharacteristic of him to have missed out an expression of regret about the death of Mr Dawoodzai, but I am sure that he can put that right in a moment. Is it not plain that the Government are hiding behind the Dublin convention in terms of their responsibilities to these Afghan interpreters? Is it not right that there are two Afghan interpreters now waiting for a decision in the UK and a further 10, I understand, languishing in despair in Calais, one of whom was seriously injured in an IED explosion in Helmand? Do the Government agree that there is absolutely nothing that stops them being more generous than the convention requires in order to provide a refuge for these men who have risked their lives to stand beside our troops in the service of the Crown? If they will not do that, does he understand how many in this House and beyond it will see the Government’s policy as inexplicable, inhumane and a matter of shame for all of us?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, the case mentioned by the noble Lord is clearly very tragic, and no words of mine can ameliorate that. However, as the noble Lord will understand, I am prevented from discussing the details of individual cases. The Government are doing all they reasonably can to help our former interpreters, in addition to our legal obligations under the refugee convention. It is completely wrong to say that treatment has been unfair; we fully accept that we have a responsibility to those who have worked for British forces in conflict zones. We owe them our gratitude and support, and that is why we have offered a redundancy relocation option that does not require local staff to prove that they are at risk, unlike the schemes in other countries. We have an intimidation policy that allows for relocation to the UK, and that scheme is open to anyone who has worked for us.

Refugees and Migrants: Royal Navy and NATO Interception in Mediterranean

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

We are aware of the concerns mentioned by the noble Lord. That is exactly why I referred to the discussions ongoing today at the EU-Turkey summit about the legalities of returning these migrants to Turkey. In the mean time, the advice I have received is that should we pick up any migrants—I do not necessarily anticipate that we will—the default position at present is to land them in Greece. The Greek authorities have indicated that they are willing to accept those individuals.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, as my noble friend has said this is a welcome move, if a small and rather late one. But have we not now reached a position where Her Majesty’s Government’s policy is to rescue such refugees as they find with their lives endangered and then to abandon them, because they will not take a single one of the refugees now fleeing for their lives from the Syrian battlefields? Yet we are perfectly happy, of course, to criticise Europe for not being able to cope with a million of them. I am not allowed to use the word “hypocrisy” in this Chamber so let me confine myself to saying: does the Minister not find that, overall, that is a pretty discreditable policy?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I do not share the noble Lord’s view. The Prime Minister has announced that we will resettle 20,000 of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees over the next few years. That will build on an existing scheme for Syrians, designed to support refugees based on their vulnerability. We have now settled more than 1,000 vulnerable Syrian refugees and, in addition to those 20,000, we have partnered with the United Nations refugee agency to identify vulnerable child refugees in the region for resettlement to the UK, where it is in the best interests of the child. The £10 million aid package to which I referred will be devoted to that.

Counter-ISIL Coalition Strategy

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I agree with the thrust of the noble Lord’s points and questions. He is absolutely right that, to the extent that we are able to do so, we should use our strongest endeavours to contribute to the anti-ISIL effort. We will contribute around 85 military personnel to US-led training of the moderate Syrian opposition, training thousands of screened members of the opposition over the next three years in, for example, the use of small arms, infantry tactics and medical skills. More than 6,000 Syrians have volunteered for the train-and-equip programme and are in various stages of registration, pre-screening and vetting. It is imperative that we attract, recruit and retain the right candidates. We screen potential recruits thoroughly.

Our focus will initially be on helping the new Syrian forces defend communities against ISIL and eventually lead offences against its brutal attacks. Training will take place in Turkey and other countries in the region. I have already referred to the training we are undertaking in Iraq, which, as I have said, is welcomed by the Iraqi Government and is proving effective.

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure I heard the Minister say that were British aircraft to be used over Syria to bomb ISIL, they would bring—I think his phrase was—unique capabilities. Will he explain, within his ability to do so, what those unique capabilities would be that were not already fully supplied in good measure by the United States, apart from anyone else? Were the Government to bring to the House a proposition to use British aircraft over Syria, and were we to believe that that was anything other than token bombing for political purposes and to cheer ourselves up, we would need to be convinced that the very small amount of high explosive that the British could add to the huge weight of high explosive already in theatre, which can in fact not be used because it cannot acquire the targets, would make any material difference whatever. Surely our skills and ability would be better served by following the line proposed by the noble Lords, Lord King and Lord Howell, to see if we can build the wide coalition—building on the Tehran deal, bringing in Iran and bringing in Russia—that will be necessary to make sense of military action, which, without that, seems to have very little.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Thursday 28th May 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow such an excellent speech. I have to confess that I find myself feeling rather content to be back on this side of the Chamber. The view from here is somehow more congenial for a Liberal—although I am sorry not to be sharing a Bench, if that is the right way to put it, with my old friend and partner in so much in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the noble Baroness, Lady Helic. I look forward very much to hearing her maiden speech.

And so ISIL sweeps on: unstopped and seemingly unstoppable; launching a wave of barbarism, ignorance and medievalism across the Middle East; destroying lives and threatening our common heritage; altering the borders of the Middle East; and humiliating the international community that set its hands to stop it more than a year ago. It gives me no pleasure to say that this is what has happened and that it is what many of us warned would happen if we sought a course of action that depended solely on the use of military force unanchored to any kind of sensible diplomatic strategy. I remember saying—I think in this House—that we will not win this battle by bombing because we cannot bomb ideas, and nor will we win it by using western high explosives to destroy more Muslim lives unless we can put that within a much broader diplomatic strategy. We have failed, and we are now facing the consequences of that failure.

Something else has happened. We have now moved closer to a much more dangerous state of risk: a risk far more dangerous than determined jihadists. It is a risk which is about moving towards a regional religious war between the Sunnis and the Shias. This is the real danger that now confronts us. It is the danger of a regional war which draws in the other great powers, with us on the side of the Sunnis—they are our friends and they provide us with oil and money and all sorts of help—and the Russians on the side of the Shias because that is the only counterbalance to the Sunni jihadism that now threatens the Muslim republics of Dagestan and Chechnya, and which indeed now threatens to divide the Russian Federation.

That is what we are moving to, and we will continue to move in that direction for as long as we believe, in our arrogance, that the underlying cause of all this is an attack on the West. It is not; we are simply one battle in a much wider war. The enemy is not the Satan in the West; it is the great heretic in Tehran. That is what all this is a precursor to, and we plunge ahead, seemingly completely unaware that this is the direction in which we are going. We are failing to stop the scourge of ISIL and we are failing to move away from that consequence. Indeed, we may even be moving closer to it.

What is to be done? Some, including some in this House, say that we should put troops on the ground. To me, this would be to add folly to historical ignorance. The problem is not the wrong military strategy; it is that we have made the fatal mistake of having a military strategy that is not anchored to a diplomatic strategy. It seems that we have wilfully and deliberately forgotten the wisdom of Clausewitz, who said that war is an extension of politics by other means. By the way, Clausewitz uses the German word “Politik”, spelled with a “k” at the end, which is far more about diplomacy than real politics. We have decided that war is the only instrument and that diplomacy can be put to one side. We see a problem in the world and our first instinct is to bomb it. That is exactly what we have done for the past 20 years, and perhaps more.

The last war to be fought within a diplomatic context was the first Gulf War, when George Bush Sr took the trouble to put together a genuine diplomatic coalition of which the instrument of military force was a part. Then we had shock and awe, and our dedication to—our obsession with, even—kinetic force as the only instrument to change things. George Bush Jr deliberately did not put together any diplomatic strategy, and we paid for the consequences of that: we lost.

Then it happened again in Afghanistan, where we deliberately did not put together any kind of diplomatic strategy and ignored the fundamental principle of creating peace after conflict, which is, “Bring in the neighbours”. We learnt that in Northern Ireland when finally we got the chance to do so and we understood that Dublin had a role to play. But we ignored that. We thought that it could all be done by kinetic force, but it could not and we lost. We used all sorts of euphemisms— the same ones that are being used now—to say that actually it was all a success, but it was a humiliating failure.

On the third occasion, in Libya, we did exactly the same thing again—bombs and bombs alone—and we lost. One would imagine that, thrice bitten, we might be a little more shy the fourth time of taking the same action, but such is our appetite for folly that we have done exactly the same again. It is not because there is no diplomatic strategy before us, because there is. We could begin to put together a genuine coalition. Our coalition at present is not for diplomacy but for military action: far too small, far too western-led and far, far too Sunni.

Actually, we could put together a genuine diplomatic coalition which would include Turkey, Iran and Tehran, and which could include—why not?—Russia. If Russia has shown the kind of aggression we deplore in Ukraine, is it not wise of us to reach out by saying to the Russians, “You have a role to play in this”, rather than pushing them into a corner? After all, they suffer just as much as we do, and arguably more, from the threat of Sunni jihadism. For us this is about returning people from the battlefield; their states are the battlefield. If we were to put together such a diplomatic coalition, military force would have a context in which it could be used.

I am not squeamish about military force. How could I be, coming from my background? However, I know that it will not succeed if it is the only instrument. It has to be locked within a broader diplomatic strategy, and this we have utterly failed to do. I accept that there would be difficulties with Turkey that we would have to overcome, including some concerns about human rights. I accept that there are difficulties with Tehran, although the deal on the nuclear thing is now nearly done, with Tehran occupying a sub-nuclear threshold. I accept that there would be difficulties with Russia, but that is the sort of coalition we are going to have to get used to. We no longer live in a monopolar world, so we have to build short-term coalitions with a particular aim with people who do not share our values.

Castlereagh would have understood it; Canning would have understood it; Palmerston, for all his enthusiasm for gunboats, would have understood it. Why do we ignore it? ISIL is the fourth occasion on which we have learnt graphically and at great cost that we think we live in the kinetic age where the only instrument to change things is western high explosives. We do not. We live in the diplomatic age where building broader coalitions as a context for the use of force is the only way to create peace and win conflicts such as this. As long as we go on persisting with the folly that this is the age of western high explosives rather than the age of sensible, intelligent and subtle diplomacy, we will continue to fail, and the cost will be paid in the lives of young men and women.